The Flood’s weekly podcast was not yet a year old in the summer of 2009 when it featured this favorite fiddle tune by the late Joe Dobbs.
Having played “St. Anne’s Reel” for years by then, Joe loved to talk about the tune’s confused origins. These days the song is played from Scotland and Ireland to New England and other spots all around the world. Click the button below to hear Joe’s rendition from the Summer of 2009:
About the Song
It’s been claimed as a Shetland tune, an Irish reel, a contra-dance number and an American old-time standard. However, Joe was pretty much convinced that “St. Anne’s Reel” comes to us from the French-Canadian tradition.
In the years since Joe’s death in 2015, The Flood’s crack research team has been able to use new digital tools to confirm his theory.
It appears the tune was first captured on record by Montreal fiddler Willie Ringuette in 1927 as part of a medley called “Quadrille du loup garou - 4ème partie”.
The melody was first made popular in 1930 as a stand-alone track by legendary Québecois fiddler Joseph Allard (1873-1947), who released it under the alternative names “Reel de Ste-Anne” and “Reel des esquimaults”.
Adding credence to a French-Canadian origin story is that Saint Anne, of course, is traditionally a cultural and religious icon in Québec. About its namesake, well, the tune might have been named for the saint (historically, Jesus’s grandmother) or for a regional municipality in Quebec or for the Bay of St. Anne in New Brunswick.
After Allard’s record, the song was propelled into mainstream prominence during the 1940s by Don Messer through his popular radio and TV broadcasts and since then it has become a fiddle mainstay in old-time, bluegrass and celtic bands.
The Sound of 2009
If you’d like to sample more of The Flood’s sound in that first year of the podcast, turn to the free Radio Floodango music streaming service. In the “Hear by Year” column, click the 2009 button to fire up your audio time machine.
And remember, we’ve now got ways to mobilize the ol’ Floodanago. Click here to find out how to put the Flood radio on your computer desktop and on an iPhone to make your Flood fix always just a click away.
Meanwhile, for more about what was happening in the Floodisphere in 2009, click here to visit those pages of the band’s online scrapbook.
Enter Wendell
Two years after Joe’s 2009 podcast performance, “St. Anne’s Reel” made an encore appearance in the Flood band room when our favorite flutist, Dr. Wendell Dobbs, dropped by to jam with the guys.
Wendell, a professor at Marshall University, a section leader of the Huntington Symphony Orchestra, is an old friend. As reported here earlier, his Irish band, Blackbirds and Thrushes, performed in the same programs with The Flood often over the years.
The Flood shared shows with Wendell and his wife Linda on stages from Marshall University and the old Huntington High building to Snowshow Mountain and elsewhere.
He and Joe Dobbs were not related, but when you heard Joe's fiddle and Wendell's flute together, you'd swear these Dobbses were brothers. Or at least, ought to be.